IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v11y1997i4p93-112.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Meddling Through: Regulating Local Telephone Competition in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Robert G. Harris
  • C. Jeffrey Kraft

Abstract

After a brief history of telecommunication policies and the development of local competition in the United States, this paper analyzes the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and subsequent FCC and state regulatory decisions. Unfortunately, these recent policy changes have generated pervasive, intrusive regulations, undermining the objectives the Telecom Act was intended to promote: competition, innovation, and investment in telecommunications infrastructure. States should allow incumbent local carriers to rebalance their retail rates and set interconnection prices based on actual costs. Federal policymakers should reduce and liberalize regulations, allowing market forces more freedom to allocate resources and shape industry structure.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert G. Harris & C. Jeffrey Kraft, 1997. "Meddling Through: Regulating Local Telephone Competition in the United States," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 93-112, Fall.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:11:y:1997:i:4:p:93-112
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.11.4.93
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.11.4.93
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John McMillan, 1994. "Selling Spectrum Rights," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 145-162, Summer.
    2. R. Preston McAfee & John McMillan, 1996. "Analyzing the Airwaves Auction," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 159-175, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matthew Gentzkow, 2006. "Valuing New Goods in a Model with Complementarities: Online Newspapers," NBER Working Papers 12562, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Lawrence White, 2000. ""Propertyzing" the Electromagnetic Spectrum: Why It's Important, and How to Begin," Working Papers 00-08, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    3. Carlo Cambini & Piercarlo Ravazzi & Tommaso Valletti, 2000. "La tariffazione dell'accesso nelle telecomunicazioni: principi economici e interventi regolatori in alcuni paesi industrializzati," ICER Working Papers 10-2000, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    4. Massey, Patrick, 2004. "Is Irish Utility Regulation Failing Consumers?," Quarterly Economic Commentary: Special Articles, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), vol. 2004(4-Winter), pages 1-18.
    5. Chiang, Eric P. & Hauge, Janice A., 2013. "The impact of non-neutral federal regulatory policy on competition," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 1142-1149.
    6. Dino Falaschetti, 2008. "Can Lobbying Prevent Anticompetitive Outcomes? Evidence On Consumer Monopsony In Telecommunications," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(4), pages 1065-1096.
    7. Clifford Winston, 1998. "U.S. Industry Adjustment to Economic Deregulation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 89-110, Summer.
    8. Kahn, Alfred E. & Tardiff, Timothy J. & Weisman, Dennis L., 1999. "The Telecommunications Act at three years: an economic evaluation of its implementation by the Federal Communications Commission," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 319-365, December.
    9. Knorr, Andreas, 2002. "Liberalization in telecommunications," HWWA Discussion Papers 162, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWA).
    10. Diaz-Bautista, Alejandro, 2002. "The role of telecommunications infrastructure and human capital: Mexico´s economic growth and convergence," ERSA conference papers ersa02p102, European Regional Science Association.
    11. Russell Pittman, 2001. "Vertical Restructuring of the Infrastructure Sectors of Transition Economies," Industrial Organization 0111002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. White, Lawrence J., 2000. "US telephone deregulation: lessons to be learned, mistakes to be avoided," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 173-183, May.
    13. Inderst, Roman, 2002. "Why competition may drive up prices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 451-462, April.
    14. Harvey James & Derek Johnson, 2002. "Understanding Regulatory Environments and their Impact on Economic Change," Industrial Organization 0202001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Russell Pittman, 2003. "Vertical Restructuring (or Not) of the Infrastructure Sectors of Transition Economies," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 5-26, March.
    16. Knorr, Andreas, 2002. "Liberalization in Telecommunications," Discussion Paper Series 26225, Hamburg Institute of International Economics.
    17. Dino Falaschetti, 2004. "Can Voting Reduce Welfare? Evidence from the US Telecommunications Sector," Public Economics 0401006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Dino Falaschetti, 2004. "Can Voting Reduce Welfare? Evidence from the US Telecommunications Sector," Public Economics 0401009, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Evans, Lewis, 1998. "The Critical Importance of Information: Incentive Regulation and its Application in Electricity," Working Paper Series 3935, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    20. Dino Falaschetti, 2003. "Can latent groups influence policy decisions? The case of telecommunications policy," Public Economics 0311002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Dino Falaschetti, 2003. "Voter Turnout, Regulatory Commitment, and Capital Accumulation: Evidence from the US Telecommunications Sector," Microeconomics 0311002, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicolas Gruyer & Nathalie Lenoir, 2003. "Auctioning airport slots (?)," Post-Print hal-01021718, HAL.
    2. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton & R. Preston McAfee & John McMillan, 1997. "Synergies in Wireless Telephony: Evidence from the Broadband PCS Auctions," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(3), pages 497-527, September.
    3. Marco A. Haan & Linda A. Toolsema, 2011. "License Auctions When Winning Bids Are Financed Through Debt," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(2), pages 254-281, June.
    4. Paul Klemperer, 2002. "What Really Matters in Auction Design," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 169-189, Winter.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L98 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Government Policy
    • L96 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Telecommunications

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:11:y:1997:i:4:p:93-112. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.